Weekend Download №41

Platform: Mac, Windows

Brimming with bushes around its perimeter, the park at the center of town looks like a muffin erupting from its pan onto the surrounding streets. Not exactly the quietest place to relax, but at least there are a few trees and enough grass to spread out in the shade. But as you pass a worn dirt path something catches your eye. There, perched atop a building on the outskirts of downtown, is a brightly colored billboard. Scrawled across its neon front are three simple words pressed in a white sans serif font: "Got Weekend Download?"

The Hidden Object Show(Windows/Mac, ~85MB, demo) - Like hidden object games, but wish they would take themselves a little less seriously? The Hidden Object Show flies in for the rescue. Instead of dark tales involving circus carnies or mysterious happenings in the middle of the night, this game throws you into a game show where the object is — wait for it — to find hidden objects! It's a lengthy game for its genre and the game show theme is a great change of pace. Some of the mini-games are a bit ho-hum, but otherwise it's a nice romp through item hunting territory.

Debrysis(Windows, 5MB, free) - An arena shooter along the lines of GridWars, only this time you're in control of a wheeled vehicle in a series of landscapes. Move with the [arrow] keys, aim and fire with the mouse. As usual your only goal is to stay alive and shoot the bad guys, but the plethora of power-ups are both helpful and cool to use.

Octave Engine Cake(Windows/Mac, 5MB, free) - Like webtoys such as Powder Game but also love building games like Armadillo Run? Consider this your downloadable alternative! Play in the sandbox with elements such as rice, mochi, fire, fuel, powder, jet, gas, and much more. Build rudimentary structures using the materials, then set the elements loose on them. You can even drag and drop your own images to play around with or use as textures. There are over 40 pre-made levels to try, some of which are downright hilarious.

Karoshi 2.0(Windows, 8.7MB, free) - In most video games you succeed by staying alive, beating the bad guys, and generally just keeping yourself out of trouble, right? Not in Karoshi. This quirky platform puzzler tasks you with killing the main character by any means possible. Not only will you solve puzzles only to find that they kill you, you'll want to do it, you'll keep doing it, and you'll laugh just about every time. The game has a great sense of parodic humor, so expect some gaming conventions to be turned upside-down. Scroll down and look on the right side of the screen for the download link.

J20(Windows, 14MB, free) - Created using Game Maker, j20 is a relaxed shooter-type game that draws heavy inspiration from flOw. Choose a jellyfish and swim around each stage attacking enemies with your tentacles to power-up. You'll also fight a few bosses along the way. The game is relatively short and not nearly as impressive as flOw, but you'll still have a great time gulping smaller fishies in the ocean.

Obake(Windows, 7.5MB, free) - Obake is an exploration-based platformer where you control a ghost that can turn into any enemy it comes across. Beyond that, I can't tell you much, as the game is in Japanese! Despite the mid-sized language barrier, Obake is remarkably playable and lots of fun. Use the [z] key to attack, [x] to jump, and [c] to discard your guise and return to normal ghost mode. To absorb an enemy, simply hop on its head and press the [down] arrow key.

As an extra special post scriptum bonus, I'd also like to mention that previously reviewed The Amazing Brain Train is now available from BigFishGames! The same crew behind the Professor Fizzwizzle games put together a superb brain teaser/puzzle title where you help animals solve problems by flexing your grey matter through fifteen brain teasing puzzles.

This one confuses me. I think you have to wait awhile before touching the spikes.

Level 28:

Press the yes button 10 times.

Haha. Jump over the buttons and go off the right side of the screen.

Level 29:

You can click on the black squares to remove them, clear a path to below the safe, but leave a square below the safe. Get below the safe, then remove the final square.

Level 30:

You spawn where you click, but you can still move normally after you spawn. Spawn to the left of the button, then move your mouse underneath the safe. Step on the button, then click so you spawn under the safe.

Level 31:

Jumping puzzle! Avoid the blue button at the end.

Level 32:

Don't do anything.

Level 33:

Jump into the circle, jump while in the circle and you double jump. Jump your way up to the spikes.

Level 34:

Press escape and go back to level 32, then jump into the weird thing on the right. Press the button, cross the beam.

Level 35:

Don't hold right, tap it repeatedly to inch your way to the spikes.

Level 36:

Go left.

Level 37:

You have to hold every button on your keyboard, then shake your monitor left and right. Get a friend to help. Then slap him for being stupid as this level solves itself.

Level 38:

You will create a black block wherever you click, so move all the way to the right and jump, create a block under you, and repeat two times. If it takes you more than 3 to reach the spike, restart. No more than 3.

Don't press Q. Look for a block with a red triangle on it. It disappears. Jump through it and hit the spikes on the other side.

Level 40:

He's bluffing.

Level 41:

Notice the height difference between both sides?

Walk left.

Level 42:

There is no solution, might as well press Esc and go play with the level editor.

Level 43:

Move to the far right. Press restart. Move to the wall. Press resart. Move 3 spaces away from the first button, jump and move onto the button.

Level 44:

You are invisible. Use the buttons to track your movements, try and guess when to jump to land on the spikes.

Level 45:

Just give up.

Level 46:

The cursor destroys the white blocks, but you can't move it very much. It follows your movements, so use it to destroy the block in your way, jump it over the safe, then position yourself underneat the safe. Move the actual mouse to the left. If that doesn't work, I dunno.

Level 47:

The cursor acts as a platform. Jump and move the cursor underneath yourself, use this to scale the wall and make it to the spikes.

I don't think Level 48 works online, so I'm downloading the game to test it out.

Ok, apparently it won't recognize my CD drive due to Daemon Tools creating a spoof drive confusing it. If anyone else has this problem, here is the fix from the creator: http://venbrux.com/karoshi2/Karoshi%202.0_nocd.zip
Extract it into the same folder as Karoshi 2.0, then run the Nocd.exe instead of the regular one. Press space on level 48.

Level 49:

Jump. Stand on your head. Jump.

Boss Battle Levels:

Boss Battle:

go left

The Final Boss:

Green squares disappear when you click on them. Leave the third one from the bottom to jump on.

Um, since no one's said anything about it yet, I'll go ahead and say it.
If you're unfamiliar with .lzh files:
To play Obake, you have to use a program to extract the contents of the file. Both WinRAR and Winzip work as far as I know.

Karoshi is terrific. The blurb in the review doesn't give it justice - to me it's a mix of a platform game and Click-Drag-Type with a heavy dose of sick humour. A must try for everyone, and perhaps worthy of its own review.

That said, I cannot pass level 27. The walkthrough above doesn't really help with this one, either.

I'm having a lot of fun with OE-CAKE, though. Half the fun comes from finding out what everything does. I just discovered that Jet reacts with Mochi, and I now have a bit of Jet perpetually spinning in the corner of my screen.

Anyone know what User's does? I assume it's something that the user can define, but I have no idea how.

as soon as i started playing karoshi, it almost reminded me of i wanna be the guy, except that the repeated death is what you're supposed to do... it was fun...

obake doesn't work for me either. it changes resolution, says loading... in the corner, then changes resolution again, then an error message pops up that says that it has encountered a problem and needs to close... help? it looks like awseome kirby-type fun, but it won't work

Assuming you're using XP (or Vista, which I'd guess has a similar option), you need to go to the Regional and Language Options in the control panel, install the files for Japanese language support, and set the language for non-unicode programs to Japanese. Also, while it's been a few years since I actually played Obake, I seem to remember there being a problem with it due to extracting it wrongly, as some zip programs won't keep the file names intact.

My hard level - it may look impossible but it is doable! caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacabaaaabaaafaaaaaaaacaaaaaaaaaacaaaaaaaacaaaaaaaaaacaaaaaaaacaaaaaaaaaacaaaaaaaacaaaaaaaafacaaaaaaaacadaaaaaaaacaaaaaaaaccccaaaaaaaciiiiiiiiaaacaaaaaaccccccccccaaaceaaaaacaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

"Originally released as a WinXP game that requires Japanese language installed, the download here is "patched" to work on non-Japanese systems without Japanese language support, thanks to Gamehippo.com user rste79. Unfortunately, the patch may fail to work on Windows 98 systems, so if you use Win98 and the game fails to run, you are out of luck. For WinXP action gamers, though, this little gem from Japan is well worth the time."

7zip works for lzh files
and its free no paying for it or getting trialware involved www.7-zip.org
anyway the game does not work for me because I dont have the correct language installed (also true for the non english oecake though the actual english version works (albeit without the japenese versions features because the English version is lower)

Invi, for all love about games, but I won't install daemon tools just because of some stupid game puzzle... Also a poster complained the he didn't get past the levels exactly because he had daemon tools installed.

I'm fairly sure I've downloaded my copy from the official site, so unless there site has been hacked and the "false" copy was available through the official channels I don't see how else could I get the "tainted" version.

The installation of DT I got didn't contain any trojans/viruses per se as the proclamation states, however it DID install an unremovable search bar in all my browsers (without my permission) which I cannot uninstall anymore and it locked my homepage to Deamon Search homepage without letting me to change it. I go berserk when new applications mess with my desktop and apps without any indication they will do so.

However I'm willing to give it a benefit of a doubt - once I reinstall the system to destroy any trace of the current version of DT.

hi ppls! i loved this weekend download, jay! eo-cake is SO addicting! anyways, i've been trying to get karoshi 2.0 to work, but i'm having trouble. how do you install it? do you need to create an account??? please help!any would be appriciated greatly!
-dumakiki

hi! sorry for double post! I'm having another problem; it's not with karoshi, however. im having a problem with eo cake. it says in the description that there are over 40 pre-made levels, but i can't find any!!! i have no clue what's wrong, either. once again, any help or advice would be appriciated.
-dumakiki :D

The DaemonTools install has a very, very, very carefully worded license agreement jammed into it that you do NOT need to agree to in order to install it (as it isn't the main one that involves the program, but a second one), but you have to click the right response or else you'll fall into the trap. This is what's responsible for the search bar, among the other stuff that hitchhikes with it onto your computer.

Karoshi was fun... right up until the very end, when I got to a screen that said "Thanks For Play" and the game just wouldn't do anything. I couldn't close it, it didn't react to any key presses. I eventually had to go into the Task Manager to shut it down. Not good.

Obake is is very difficult, but can be far, far less so with savegame editing...

The save game is located in "obake/savegame/save.saf" and can be opened and edited with a simple text editor.

The savegame code works as follows:

AAAAAAA,BCCDDEF (and then a very long string of ones and zeroes)
A is your score,
B is the level you're on,
C is how many lives you have,
D is how many spirits you've collected,
E is the level you will start from when your game loads,
F is the monster you are currently in the form of.
(I may actually have C and D backwards, I can't remember.)
The binary strings after that represent the medals you have collected and the monsters that show up when the game starts. A perfectly, 100% complete savegame file would look exactly like this:

I absolutely agree with Wulfo that Karoshi deserves it's own post, it's a thoroughly enjoyable and hysterical journey through all the levels which had me rolling around on the floor laughing not being able to abbreviate into l33t speak.

As mentioned, a must for everyone especially casual gamers who've spent years devoting our lives to the simple goals of preserving our character's life.

@Neddo
The shortcut for fire is something either z, q, or 5. I can't remember which, and I can't test it out because OE-Cake isn't downloaded on this computer, and i'm using a limited Vista acount that won't let you do anything. Not even use Google. ARG Vista...

@dumakiki
Hmm, there should be a file called "demos" or "test" or something. All the examples are in there.

Karushio 2.0 doesn't look like much, but looks are very deceiving... Very fun game, I agree with those 2... 3... 4... other people, who say that it deserves a review of it's own. It's very fun...

Fire is apparently the "@" symbol. It's quoted many places as being Shift+2 , but may be Shift+' if you have a non-American keyboard like me. For "pouring fire", press the ` key (the one to the left of 1)
Q is water, Z is erase, number keys on their own change render mode.

Also, the ATI incompatibility I was getting was only on the English version I linked to. Japanese one, after language pack was installed, worked better than fine (and had more features), and it was only the help files which actually changed language. In other words, ignore the link in my previous post.

yay!i finally got karoshi to work!!!!!also,i got eocake to work fully,it doesn't work on the computer i have at my house,but it still works at my grandma's house perfectly.the only problem is i still can't find the pre-made levels in eocake!!!please help me!

Can someone help me get the japanese version of OctaveEngine working? When I try to access it I get a message saying "Runtime Error! Program:(program thing)
This application has requested the runtime to terminate in an unusual way. Pleas contact the applications support team for more information."

thanks,Ainegue!i probably should have checked that file before asking for help..but oh well!anyways,i found them,but when i clivk on one,it asks me what to run it on,and i cnat find anything to do with eocake on the list it shows me!please help again!I'd appriciate :)
-Dumakiki

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